Rough Beasts: The Church of the Choirs
So it’s been a hell of a month. Many personal issues including my own illness and that of those close to me has kept me from working on this the way I would have liked. But I’ve upgraded the website, and I’m here to update you on what I’ve been able to do in the interim. If you’re just jumping in here you can read the first post here. The tools that I’m using are a stripped down version of Ironsworn mashed up with Blades in the Dark and they are available here.
A Little World Building
I always freeze up when I try to do world building. Somewhere along the way I began to think of it as a distraction from actual writing, and now that axiom is so burned into my brain I need to have a game (and apparently, a blog) just to get the process started. So in an attempt to try and figure out a model for world building I picked up this guide from DriveThruRPG. I may do a full review in the fullness of time but I need to try and apply the tools before I give my opinion about them.
The World building Guide suggests the following elements:
Name: What do you call the thing?
Description: What does the thing look, smell, taste, feel sound like?
Motifs: I’m adding this one because it’s always handy for me to think of sensory images to describe and anchor a thing.
Purpose: How does this thing enable the types of stories you want to tell
Modifiers: How does this affect what characters can do?
Story Points: What can characters do to learn more about this thing or change how it affects the world?
Now what I like about this model is you can use it for anything outside of the characters and their actions. I’ve already just dropped a few nouns here and there while playing. And one could easily grab this template and apply it have, if nothing else, a quick sketch of stuff in the world. So, using this model let’s try and clarify something for this world.
Name: The Church of the Choirs
Description: How do we know this thing we see it?
The Church of the Choirs is the main religion of the continent of Othana. It spans most of the old countries that fought in The Last War. During the war its churches served as hospitals and its clergy served as healers. The church maintains that the Choirs of the Heavens sung the universe into existence and that all creation is an aspect of their song and believes that the path for humans to follow is a mystery that they are supposed to uncover. When humans act in harmony with The Choir's song suffering is eased. When we fall out of harmony, suffering increases. The war, and The Red Death especially are proof that humans have fallen out of harmony with The Choir. Maybe forever.
Motifs: Astrolabes, rings and orbits, tiny lanterns hanging form vaulted ceilings and shining like stars, choking clouds of incense.
Purpose: What does this do and how does it do it?
The Church of the Choirs is our stand in for Christianity and provides us with all the imagery we need of stained glass shattered by bombs and gothic churches standing amid the rubble of destroyed towns. It also gives us all the nice gothic tropes we need of statues and bells and sin and redemption. I'll add that it also provides one the last few surviving social structures after the war destroyed most of society. Characters could work for the church in trying to stop civilization from crumbling entirely.
Modifiers: How could characters use this to accomplish something?
Knowledge of the church might help one navigate the catacombs that exist under the old cities. Knowledge of the church bureaucracy might help one navigate political situation or even get supplies. Knowledge of the religion might help inspire crowds because the church is one of the only existing social structures left.
Story Points: What interesting questions does this thing leave us asking?
Does the church have any connection to The Red Death that is sweeping the land?
Does the religion actually have any supernatural power?
For me, my greatest touchstone for this game is Resident Evil, where all the monsters are strictly biological. But Bloodborne and Lovecraftian stuff is right there and I sorta want to use it. But part of the joy of this process is being a player as well as a designer. So, at some point, we’ll ask the oracle about this…
